Archives for September 2016

September 23, 2016 by Richard Leave a Comment

How to help a choking Child

How to help a choking Child

Feeding toddlers bring back happy memories. Feeding my three was a nightmare, I had to watch them like a hawk in case they choked on their food. I read an article recently on a grandmother who had a terrifying experience when her granddaughter turned blue in the face see more…… “Linda reveals granddaughter’s choking horror

Taking Right Action NHS

Children, particularly those aged from one to five, often put objects in their mouth. This is a normal part of how they explore the world. Some small objects, such as marbles, beads and button batteries, are just the right size to get stuck in a child’s airway and cause choking.

The best way to avoid this is to make sure that small objects like these are kept out of your child’s reach.

No matter how careful you are, your child may choke on something. In most cases, you or someone else will see your child swallow the object that causes choking.

There can be other reasons why your child starts coughing. However, if your child suddenly starts coughing, is not ill, and has a habit of putting small objects in their mouth, there’s a good chance that they’re choking.

Tips on helping a choking child

If you can see the object, try to remove it. Don’t poke blindly or repeatedly with your fingers. You could make things worse by pushing the object further in and making it harder to remove.
If your child is coughing loudly, there’s no need to do anything. Encourage them to carry on coughing and don’t leave them.
If your child’s coughing is not effective (it’s silent or they can’t breathe in properly), shout for help immediately and decide whether they’re still conscious.
If your child is still conscious, but they’re either not coughing or their coughing is not effective, use back blows (see below).

Back blows for babies under one year

Sit down and lay your baby face down along your thighs, supporting their head with your hand.
Give up to five sharp back blows with the heel of one hand in the middle of the back between the shoulder blades.

Back blows for children over one year

Lay a small child face down on your lap as you would a baby.
If this isn’t possible, support your child in a forward-leaning position and give five back blows from behind.

If back blows don’t relieve the choking and your baby or child is still conscious, give chest thrusts (see below) to infants under one year or abdominal thrusts (see below) to children over one year. This will create an artificial cough, increasing pressure in the chest and helping to dislodge the object.

Chest thrusts for children under one year

Lay your baby face up along the length of your thighs.
Find the breastbone, and place two fingers in the middle.
Give five sharp chest thrusts (pushes), compressing the chest by about a third.

Abdominal thrusts for children over one year

Stand or kneel behind your child. Place your arms under the child’s arms and around their upper abdomen.
Clench your fist and place it between the navel and ribs.
Grasp this hand with your other hand and pull sharply inwards and upwards.
Repeat up to five times.
Make sure you don’t apply pressure to the lower ribcage, as this may cause damage.

Following chest or abdominal thrusts, reassess your child as follows

If the object is still not dislodged and your child is still conscious, continue the sequence of back blows and either chest or abdominal thrusts.
Call out or send for help, if you’re still on your own.
Don’t leave the child.

Even if the object has come out, get medical help. Part of the object might have been left behind, or your child might have been hurt by the procedure.

Unconscious child with choking

If a choking child is, or becomes, unconscious, put them on a firm, flat surface and shout for help.
Call 999, putting the phone on speakerphone so your hands are free.
Don’t leave the child at any stage.
Open the child’s mouth. If the object is clearly visible and you can grasp it easily, then remove it.
Start CPR (see How to resuscitate a child).

Special thanks to Wealthy Affiliate for teaching me Website Skills

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September 8, 2016 by Richard Leave a Comment

How to Raise Happy Healthy Children

How to Raise Happy Healthy Children

Did you know that I am a Dad of three adult children?. I have two sons who are terrific hands on Dads. I also have four adorable grandchildren whom I love dearly. to-write-774648_1280

I have been a Dad for thirty-five years and have found parenting not only rewarding but a wonderful learning curve for me and my wife. I have always been interested in Personal Development and Psychology. Human behaviour always fascinated me since childhood I would spend hours observing people.

Here’s what I learned about being a Dad

The most important role as a parent is to love and nurture your child
Build in them feelings of high self-esteem and self-confidence.
If you raise your children feeling good about themselves and full of enthusiasm to face the world then you have done an outstanding job as a parent.

Why Parents Don’t Love Enough

Brian Tracy whose books and tapes I have read for the last thirty years, has had a major impact on my thinking and how I handle life’s situations. According to Brian Tracy, he states there are two major reasons for the failure by parents to love their children enough. First, the parents do not love themselves. Parents with low self-esteem have great difficulty giving more love to their children than they feel for themselves.

There are two major reasons for the failure by parents to love their children enough. First, the parents do not love themselves. The second reason that parents don’t love their children enough is they often have the mistaken notion that their children exist to fulfill their expectations.

Children are Not Property

The starting point of raising super kids is to realize that your children are not your property. Your children belong to themselves. They are a gift to you from high above, and a temporary gift at that.

Children are a Precious Gift

When you look at your children as precious gifts that you can only enjoy for a short time, you see your role as parents differently. When you celebrate and encourage the special nature and personality of your child, he or she grows like a flower in sunshine. But if you try to get your child to be something he or she is not, your child’s spirit will wither like a leaf on a tree in autumn.

How Successful Will Your Children Be?

A Practical, No-Nonsense Way to Raise Your Children

Finally: A simple, easy, straightforward system guaranteed to make you a better parent. No bull – just facts – to help you raise self-confident, happy, healthy kids.

Raise High Achievers Now

Want More Info?

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And to end this post; Khalil Gibran’s poem on “Children” gets me every time I read it.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. ……read more…..

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September 3, 2016 by Richard Leave a Comment

Dogs and Children

Growing up with a dog

I grew up with pets in the house. I even had a duckling called Gertrude which I raised until my Father decided to have it on his menu for Sunday lunch. It took me a long time to forgive him. My children loved pets but I discouraged them from having it in the house. My response was, ” Who will look after it when we away”? I used to have a phobia of dogs as one large alsatian bit me. My daughter was also bitten on the lip by a dog but that has not stopped her from having a cute chihuahua as a house pet. I would love to have a boxer as a house pet but my wife thinks its too big to have in the house.

Dogs and children

Dogs and children can be great friends and have a dog can help children develop kindness, understanding, and respect for living things. Dog companionship can improve a child’s social skills with people and care for a pet can encourage responsibility.
Because of this, many families have dogs. Children quickly understand and learn to treat the dog as part of the family but it is important that parents teach children how to stay safe around dogs, to protect both child and dog.

Our top tips to keeping kids safe and dogs happy

Watch our video of top tips from our very own Samantha Gaines, mother to a toddler, dog owner, and dog welfare expert.

Dogs and children communicate differently

From a dog’s point of view, children communicate differently to adults; they cry, yell, shriek, crawl and run about flailing their arms. Dogs find it hard to understand children and even harder to tell them when they want to be left alone!

Children often treat dogs as their peers; they hug, cuddle, hold and scold them. Children express affection for their family through close facial contact e.g. kissing. While this may seem sweet, a dog may find this threatening and it can be quite dangerous.

For these reasons young children are more likely to be bitten than any other group and research shows that children are far more likely to be bitten by their family dog than any others. However, there are lots of things you can do to make sure your child is safe and your dog is happy.

Helping children and dogs to enjoy living together

We’ve teamed up with veterinarian and animal behaviourist, Dr Sophia Yin, to design a set of materials to help parents understand and recognise dog behaviour making it easier for children to stay safe and dogs happy.

Take a look at our ‘6 Golden Rules’ for a quick guide on staying safe.
Understand how your dog is feeling – learn to recognise important body language signals.

Download our leaflets and posters and teach:

Leaflet: Children and dogs – guide to staying safe
Poster: How kids SHOULD interact with dogs (PDF 238KB)
Poster: How kids SHOULD NOT interact with dogs (PDF 378KB)
Leaflet: Growing up with a dog – how dogs and children can enjoy living together (PDF 300KB)

Relevant documents

Growing up with a dog – how dogs and children can enjoy living together (PDF 300KB)

Growing up with a dog ‘reduces childhood asthma risk’ NHS

“Children who grow up with a pet dog in the family home have a lower risk of developing asthma,” The Times reports.

A large Swedish study found an association between pet ownership and reduced risk of asthma. Living on a farm was also found to reduce this risk.

The study found exposure to dogs reduced the risk of both preschool (by 10%) and school-age children having asthma by 13%. And living on a farm as a child – not just visiting one – also appeared to reduce asthma risk by an estimated 31% for preschool children and 52% for school-age children.

Some commentators have argued these results add weight to what is known as the hygiene hypothesis. This is the idea that children who grow up in sterile environments have reduced exposure to infectious agents, such as those carried by dogs, so they have an underdeveloped immune system. This may then make them more vulnerable to allergic conditions such as asthma.

However, one of this study’s limitations is the findings can only highlight a potential link: it cannot categorically prove living with or around animals reduces the risk of childhood asthma.

The research has attempted to adjust for various potential confounders, including parental asthma, but other factors may still have had an influence.

One proven way to reduce the risk of childhood asthma is to never expose your children to tobacco smoke (secondhand smoke) both during pregnancy and when they are growing up.

Cockapoos and girl

Where did the story come from?

The study was carried out by researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden

It was funded by the Swedish Research Council, Stockholm County Council, the Strategic Research Program in Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation. There were no significant conflicts of interest.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Pediatrics.

The UK media has generally reported the findings accurately. The Independent quoted one of the authors of the study, who said: “These kinds of epidemiological studies look for associations in large populations, but do not provide answers on whether and how animals could protect children from developing asthma.

“We know that children with established allergy to cats or dogs should avoid them, but our results also indicate that children who grow up with dogs have reduced risks of asthma later in life.”

What kind of research was this?

This cohort study aimed to investigate the association between exposure to dogs and farm animals during the first year of life – as in living with or around them – and having asthma as a preschool (around three years old) or school-age child (around six years old). cats

This study design is able to suggest links for further investigation but is unable to prove cause and effect. There may be a number of other factors influencing risks, such as parental asthma, other allergies, air pollution, or other environmental exposures.

The only way to establish a causal link would be to run a randomised controlled trial (RCT), but realistically such a trial would be both expensive and impracticable – it would be difficult to convince thousands of families to adopt a dog at random or move to a farm, for example.

What did the research involve?

The researchers included all children born in Sweden over a 10-year period from 2001-10, who were identified through the Swedish Register of the Total Population and the Medical Birth Register.

The need for informed consent and parental permission was waived by the regional ethical board in Stockholm.

The study population was split into two groups:

children born between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2004 (school-age children)
children born between July 1, 2005, and December 31, 2010 (preschool-age children)

Children were excluded if their parents moved to Sweden after the child was 15 years of age or if there was incomplete information on parental identity or migration.

For school-age children, their asthma status was assessed during the seventh year of life. For preschoolers, this was assessed from the age of one and then throughout the study period.

Four different asthma definitions were explored:

an asthma diagnosis obtained only from the National Patient Register (NPR)
asthma medications noted in the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register (SPDR)
having both the NPR diagnosis and asthma medications noted in the SPDR
having either one or both NPR diagnosis and asthma medications noted in the SPDR

The researchers selected having either one or both NPR diagnosis and asthma medications noted in the SPDR as the most appropriate outcome measure.

Exposure to dogs was defined as having a parent registered as a dog owner during the child’s whole first year of life. Exposure to farm animals was defined as parents who were animal producers and related workers in the child’s first year of life.

A number of statistical analyses were performed to assess different levels of exposure to dogs and farm animals. The analyses were adjusted for potential confounders, including parental age, educational level, country of birth, and asthma status.

What were the basic results?

During the 10-year study period, there were 1,011,051 children born in Sweden. Researchers included 376,638 preschool-age children, of whom 53,460 (14.2%) were exposed to dogs and 1,729 (0.5%) were exposed to farm animals. They included 276,298 school-age children, where 22,629 (8.2%) of whom were exposed to dogs and 958 (0.3%) were exposed to farm animals.

After controlling for potential confounders, having a dog during the first year of life was associated with a decreased risk of asthma:

of 13% in school-age children (odds ratio [OR] 0.87, 95%confidence interval [CI] 0.81 to 0.93)
of 10% in preschool children aged three years or older (hazard ratio [HR] 0.90, 95% CI 0.83 to 0.99)

When analysed by parental asthma status, school-age children had a reduced risk regardless of whether their parent had asthma or not. However, when dividing up preschool children, exposure to dogs no longer had any effect on asthma risk, either for those with parental asthma or without.

Living with or around farm animals was also associated with a reduced risk of asthma in both school-age children (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.76) and preschool-age children (HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.84) after adjusting for confounders.

However, again, the results changed when divided by parental asthma status. For both school-age and preschool children, those who had a parent free from asthma had a reduced risk, but those with a parent with asthma did not.

Dog or farm animal exposure had no significant effect on risk of asthma in children under the age of three.

How did the researchers interpret the results?

The researchers concluded that: “The data support the hypothesis that exposure to dogs and farm animals during the first year of life reduces the risk of asthma in children at age six years.

“This information might be helpful in decision making for families and physicians on the appropriateness and timing of early animal exposure.”

Conclusion

This cohort study aimed to study the association between living with or around dogs or farm animals during the first year of life and the risk of asthma in preschool children and school-aged children. The results suggest early exposure to dogs and farm animals may reduce the risk of childhood asthma.

However, there are a number of limitations and caveats to consider. This study type can suggest an association, but it cannot prove cause and effect. The researchers adjusted their analysis for various potential confounders, including parental age, education level and country of birth. But it was not possible to account for all confounding factors, and other factors could have had an influence.

Importantly, the researchers did take parental asthma status into account, but adjusting for this gave inconsistent results, with some links remaining significant, while others did not. For example, school-age children with early dog exposure had a reduced risk regardless of whether their parent had asthma.

But when the two groups were divided in two according to parental asthma status, no risk reduction was found for either. When it came to farm animal exposure, the risk was reduced in children of parents without asthma, but not in those who had parental asthma, for both groups.

This slightly clouds the picture and makes it difficult to give a clear, consistent message on whether animal exposure has a direct effect on risk, or whether it is influenced by other factors, such as parental or child eczema, hay fever, or dust mite or animal fur allergies. These things may influence both the decision to live with an animal and the child’s risk of developing asthma.

That said, the study has strengths: it included a large sample, followed participants for a number of years, and also used medical registers to identify child asthma, rather than relying on parental report.

However, as the researchers used official registers, there may be a problem with missing data for dog ownership or parental asthma status, for example. The study was also unable to account for exposure to other animals, particularly at close family members’ homes, where there may be high levels of exposure that would not have been linked.

It is not exactly clear what causes asthma, although it is thought to be a combination of factors, including genetic and environmental. Modern hygiene standards are often considered to be one of these factors, and the researchers suggest this may be why exposure to animals could have a protective effect.

However, this cannot be confirmed at this stage. More research is needed before we can consider giving any official advice to parents about the benefits – or otherwise – of having a pet.

Analysis by Bazian. Edited by NHS Choices. Follow NHS Choices on Twitter. Join the Healthy Evidence forum.

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